Four year olds learn The Wiggle Jig way

Carol Harper/charper@morningjournal.com
"My name is Chase, and I'm going to be a Ninja Turtle," said Chase Ayers, 4, while demonstrating his Ninja pose at The Wiggle Jig dance class at Franklin Elementary School in Elyria.

Thirty preschool children learn bat facts and stretch imaginations in The Wiggle Jig dance class at Franklin Elementary School in Elyria.

A program of BalletMet in Columbus, Wiggle Jig helps 4-year-olds learn by moving.

At Franklin Elementary School, The Wiggle Jig class meets once a week for 10 weeks. The

Elyria City Schools included The Wiggle Jig residency as part of an arts- and technology-infused preschool curriculum.

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Both of the two new preschool classrooms at Franklin Elementary School were made possible by a $1.25 million grant from The Stocker Foundation.

“Being able to watch the children have fun and learn at the same time is such a joy,” said Patricia O’Brien, executive director of The Stocker Foundation on a recent visit to The Wiggle Jig class. “It is incredibly rewarding to see this grant come alive for the teachers and preschoolers. The Stocker Foundation is working diligently to help school districts improve kindergarten readiness in a variety of ways. We believe that this grant will help children enter school ready to learn, and to be well on their way to read at grade level by third grade.”

Resident artist dancers Lisa Yanofsky, 24, of Cleveland Heights, and Jenni Hankey, 31, of Cleveland, work through the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning in Cleveland.

While playing a game, “Follow the Dance Leader,” children swing their arms low like a trunk of an elephant, crawl like ants, then hop like bunnies behind Hankey.

They giggle, but it is serious business for a preschooler. Children learn through play.
After sitting in a circle and standing one at a time to say their first name and tell what character they will be for Halloween, the children jump up together to pretend to carve pumpkins with large movements of their arms and legs.

“We had a guardian of one of the children call us and say that in her child’s very disrupted life, he comes home and dances, and he talks more than he ever has,” Yanofsky said.
In very young children, moving large muscles is linked to brain development, said Yanofsky, who trained as an opera singer and graduated in 2012 from Oberlin College. She now holds a master’s degree in education.

“Talking is a result of moving,” Yanofsky said. “The tongue is a muscle. Motor skills and cognitive functioning go together at this age. They’re funny as they start to discover what they can do. One of the boys mastered the snake “ssss” and moving, and now all he wants to do is wiggle and “ssss.”

Yanofsky sat on the floor with the children and asked them to imagine each leg as a snake, and to make “ssss” sounds as they stretched to reach first one toe, then the other.

“I’ve always danced since I was 2½,” Yanofsky said. “Dance is what I always come back to. It’s the hardest thing for me to teach. I don’t remember wanting to learn it, but I do remember dance classes, especially the ones I went home from, crying.

“You can practice it in the dance studio, where the mistakes are really visible,” Yanofsky said. “You get feedback right away. If you don’t make that turn you know immediately. One thing I always appreciate about dancing is to be a good dancer, you have to be an actress, a musician, a mathematician, an architect.

“I like teaching kids, too, because I think it’s important for kids to see how many different things dance can be,” Yanofsky said. “The athleticism in dance is important, but the focused character building, analytical and creative aspects are important as well. I also think the scaffolding dance gives is important. There are rules and parameters.”

Rules of dance release creativity, Hankey said.

“I love ballet, because it gives me a structure,” said Hankey, who owns Pulse Dance Studio in Bedford, and who dances with Morrison Dance in Ohio City. “But within that structure, I have a lot of artistic freedom to do whatever I want, sort of.

“I started dancing when I was 5,” Hankey said. “I feel it’s given me a lot of life experience. It helps you find discipline in yourself, builds confidence. It certainly helps you build strength, both physically and in character.”

The Center for Arts-Inspired Learning is one of the partners for Morrison Dance, Hankey said. Their involvement in The Wiggle Jig brings fine arts experiences to small children.

“So we can help these kids understand movement should be an important part of their lives,” Hankey said.

Learning styles emerge as the artists introduce new concepts, said Ann Schloss, director of academic services at Elyria City Schools.

Children who learn by doing can mirror the dancers quickly, while children who process an activity internally before doing it, watch and soak in the new concepts. The learning styles were respected.

“Sometimes when you demand it, you push too hard,” Schloss said. “You get the opposite effect.”

“I think movement is important for everyone,” Yanofsky said. “But for preschoolers with the age they’re at, there is a neural-motor connection we don’t have as we get older. We grow out of that. That means for this age group, certain gross motor skills can help certain parts of the brain develop. It helps things like literacy and pattern recognition. Physical education is just as important.“

The point of trying new programs is to find best practice for improving the district, Schloss said.

“We want to see what happens in five years,” Schloss said. “So if there are pieces and parts that are replicable, we will know what works and what doesn’t work. We’re already taking some of it to the other buildings.”

Through Wiggle Jig, the little ones also learn school can be fun.

“I hope that they leave here with a love of moving,” Yanofsky said. “I don’t want to dictate for them that they should be dancers or they should be runners. They can move. They can enjoy moving. And they’re aware of where their bodies start and stop.”

The Stocker Foundation places great value on introducing children to fine arts.

“There’s not enough you can say about the value of arts in the schools,” O’Brien said. “It’s pre-K through 12.”